Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

M ark's apartment didn't seem so close to home anymore. Every second it took him to get from his house to the dreaded place was a second further away from Amanda, but no matter how he'd begged, she refused to let him move back in, even temporarily.

He'd offered to sleep on the couch.

No, the girls won't understand.

He'd offered to sleep on the floor in the office so the girls wouldn't see him.

No, that's not fair to you.

Did she really think he cared about what was fair ? She'd been threatened by a madman, and she was worried about what was fair! But she didn't want him to move back in. How could she keep up her active dating life with her husband living in the house? Bitter sarcasm pooled in his mouth.

He was going to find Sheppard and rip him apart with his bare hands.

No. Too much chance of leaving DNA evidence.

A new scene entered his mind. A parking lot. He'd break into Sheppard's car, wait in the backseat. Slit his throat, and fade into the darkness. He'd need an alibi. Maybe Chris . . .

He had to stop before he took it too far. Before he actually did it.

If only Amanda weren't so pigheaded. She’d refused to take the gun. He'd spent an hour begging her to reconsider. But she was afraid of it, and she didn't know how to use it, and she didn't have time to go to a shooting range. Oh no, she was too busy teaching classes and writing blog posts and dating to dedicate any time to learning how to defend herself and the girls.

Despite her obvious fear, she refused to take the threat seriously. He could hear her voice, weary from tears. He's just trying to scare me. I don't think he'd really hurt me.

Mark gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled fury. How could she be so stubborn? Had she not read the stupid memoir she herself had written? Obviously Sheppard wouldn't hesitate to hurt her. He'd raped her, for crying out loud.

He didn't rape me. He just didn't realize I didn't want to.

Mark whipped the car around and headed toward the house again. How long could he keep up a vigil at the end of the driveway?

Mark would have to kill Sheppard, like he'd killed that woman in Afghanistan.

Hot shame washed over him. He grabbed his cell phone. Chris answered on the second ring.

"What's up?" Chris said.

"I don't even know where to begin."

"Is Amanda all right?"

"She's fine." Mark decided to begin with the least important. "I had a flashback today. That woman in Afghanistan. I wanted to hurt Amanda, and it all came back. I've done it before, and I could easily?— "

"Stop, Mark. What woman?"

"The one with the pipe bomb. You remember."

"That wasn't a woman. Remember, it was a man dressed in a burka."

Mark remembered standing on the dusty street, studying the face. A shaved but stubbly face. Beneath the clothes, it was a man's body. Still . . . "I thought it was a woman."

"He was carrying a bomb. He stabbed you. He was trying to kill us."

"I know. But when I killed her?—"

"Him. When you killed him . . ."

"I thought it was a woman. And I did it anyway. So I am capable. It scares me to think I could, if I lost my temper . . . I could've killed Amanda today. I've never been so angry."

"Did you hurt her?"

"I told her to go inside. And then I raked like a madman until I calmed down."

"Why were you so upset?"

"She had dinner with Alan last night."

"I see."

Mark drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and waited.

"What's going on with that guy?"

"I don't know. She said nothing happened. They're just friends."

"Hmm."

"Yeah, I know. But what can I do? I'm afraid to push her." Mark remembered her words. We have to make some decisions . What decision was Amanda pondering? Was he about to be served divorce papers?

He couldn’t contemplate that right now. “That's not even the worst news. This morning, I found a box on the front porch filled with . . . It's a long story, but it was a threat. Sheppard left it . . ." His voice trailed off as he thought of something.

After a moment, Chris prompted him. "Sheppard left it?"

"Shh. Let me think." Mark wondered at the coincidence. Sheppard and Alan. Alan and Sheppard. They'd both turned up in Amanda's life at the same time.

"I need you to check on a name for me," Mark said.

"Okay . . . ?"

"Alan Morris. He works for some publishing company in New York. Lives in New York, though I don't know where exactly. He's an editor."

"Um, why exactly?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know. No reason, really. I just . . . Is it a coincidence that she ran into both of them on the same day?"

"Wasn't Alan at the conference? Wasn’t he the one who rescued her?”

"Yeah."

"I think you're grasping. I know you don't like this guy. I wouldn't like him either. But a connection between him and Sheppard? I don't see it."

"Well, I'm not sure I see it either," Mark said. "But it's worth checking out. We haven't found anything else."

"It can't hurt, I guess. I don't blame you for being suspicious of Alan. I agree he's guilty of trying to steal your wife. There's no reason to think he's done anything else. Fortunately, we still have a number of leads to check out. Have you gotten the textbooks yet?"

"They're at home on my kitchen table. I figured we'd start working on that Monday."

"Sounds good," Chris said. "Give me the names of his publisher, editor, and agent if you can find them, and I'll do the legwork."

"You sure? I know you're busy?—"

"This is getting serious, Mark. I'll do whatever I can. And if there's a connection to Amanda, I promise we'll find it."

Halloween was an odd day to begin her new life, but Amanda had made a promise to herself Friday night, and she intended to keep it today. After Mark's crazy jealousy on Saturday, she knew she'd made the right decision. She called her lawyer. The woman had already drawn up the papers, and Amanda visited her office to sign them. Her lawyer would file them on Wednesday, beginning what she hoped would be the quick, painless process of dissolving their marriage.

The rest of the day felt shockingly normal. Mark insisted on taking the girls trick-or-treating, and Amanda didn't argue. After spending Sunday searching for the two costumes, they'd spent the afternoon decorating their front porch with spooky plastic spiders and jack-o-lanterns. They'd even hung a white sheet from the porch roof to look like a ghost.

Sophie dressed as Hermoine, Harry Potter's brainy friend. Madi chose a Rapunzel costume, her long, flowing blond wig catching on everything as she modeled it all afternoon. Amanda waved goodbye to them as they drove away, headed for the neighborhood behind their house. Their home, set as it was on the main road, was not a great starting point for trick-or-treating. Happy to hold down the fort, Amanda set the alarm after they disappeared in the darkness and sat down to work. If Mark wanted to enjoy the annual door-to-door freeze-fest with the girls, that was fine with her.

She moved her laptop to the dining room table to be close to the door, in case a random trick-or-treater rang. Fortunately nobody walked their busy street on Halloween, and even if they did, the long walk down their driveway kept the little ghouls and ghosts away.

Amanda checked her emails and schedule. With a shock, she saw she was slated to go out of town the following weekend. In the chaos of the previous week, she'd forgotten about a commitment to teach cooking classes at a retreat in New Hampshire. She took out the next day's agenda and added: confirm with clients , confirm with Mark , plan menu for weekend , and go grocery shopping .

Finally, she settled in to get some editing done. After two hours, Sophie and Madi came in, red-faced and grumpy. Mark followed them, no cheerier than the girls. Their moods improved as they dumped their booty on the living room floor to pick through the brightly-colored labels and swap favorites.

Mark helped them, digging through the candy and pocketing the Paydays.

"Okay, girls," Amanda said, "time for baths and bed. Sophie, go run the water. Madi, put the candy away and take it to the kitchen, please."

High on sugar and sleepy from the long day, they whined until Mark gave them his obey your mother or else look. Sophie bolted up the stairs. After a thank-you glance at her husband, Amanda watched as Madi put each piece of candy back into its proper plastic pumpkin—hers was pink, Sophie's was purple—and took the buckets to the kitchen.

"I'm going to work on the faucet," Mark said. "Then, do you mind if I go through those clothes?"

"Go ahead."

"Thanks." The three of them went up the stairs, Mark disappearing into the master bedroom, Amanda and Madi joining Sophie in the bathroom.

Amanda managed to read a bedtime story and get her daughters tucked into their beds by nine o'clock—much later than usual, but it was Halloween. Judging by the number of trick-or-treaters Mark said they'd seen that night, she figured hers wouldn't be the only grumpy children at school the next day.

She popped her head into the master bathroom to find Mark half-inside the bathroom cabinet.

"How's it going down there?" she asked.

A muffled, inaudible answer. Then he slid out. "Almost done. Turn the water on, would you?"

Amanda did. "Looks good up here."

"No leaks down here, either."

She turned the tap off. "I appreciate it. Hey, I wanted to remind you that you have the girls again this weekend. I have to go to New Hampshire to teach a class."

Mark sat up. "What class? What are you talking about?"

"I told you about it a while ago. I'm scheduled to teach at a retreat. Friday night, Saturday breakfast, and Saturday dinner, so I have to leave Friday at lunchtime. You can get the girls from school and?—"

"No." Mark stood up and wiped his damp hands on his jeans. "I don't want you going anywhere right now. It's not safe."

"It'll be fine. Nobody knows I'm going to be there."

"What if one of the women is in contact with him?"

"Don't be silly. Why would they be? It'll be perfectly safe. I have to do a book signing in Concord Saturday afternoon, but that's so public?—"

"What if he shows up there?"

Amanda's stomach flip-flopped, but she shrugged to cover her fear. "If he shows up, I'll tell him I'm not going to publish the manuscript. And then he'll leave me alone. Do you want to take a break and kiss the girls goodnight? "

His lips turned down. "Yeah. But we're going to talk about this later."

Of course they would. She left him to his work and headed downstairs to finish her day's editing. When she was done, she checked the clock to find it was after ten. Was Mark still upstairs, or had she been so engrossed in her work she hadn't realized he'd left? She looked into the living room and saw his jacket lying across the sectional. Apparently he was still slogging through the clothes.

Amanda filled two glasses with iced tea and carried them up the stairs. When she opened the bedroom door, she stopped short at the mess. "Holy cow, did your closet explode?"

Mark looked up from where he was standing beside the bed, surrounded by piles of clothing. He half-smiled. "What's that?"

"Iced tea. Want some?"

"Desperately." She walked around the bed and handed it to him. He grabbed the glass and gulped the liquid down. "Thank you. This is grueling work."

"Right. I'm sure it's right up there with roofing a house."

"Worse." He set the glass on the nightstand, where it joined his tall reading lamp. His alarm clock and Bible hadn't adorned the table in over a month. "I know how to roof a house. This is?—"

"Unbelievable," she said. "Can I help?"

Hope lit his expression. "Would you mind?"

She tried to hide her smile. "No problem. Explain your, uh, system."

He ran his hand through his hair. "My system? Okay. So that pile is stuff I want to get rid of."

Amanda saw the pathetically small pile on the bed.

"And that one," he said, indicating a slightly larger pile on the floor, "is stuff I definitely want to keep."

"And what about these piles?"

"Well, this one”—he pointed to another pile of clothes near his feet—“I haven't gone through yet. And that one”—he pointed to a huge pile on the floor nearer her closet—“is stuff I'm not sure about."

"Wow. Hmm." She regarded the piles. "Run downstairs and get three trash bags. Let's pack up the stuff you've already gone through. Then we'll tackle that," she said, pointing to the stuff he didn't know what to do with.

"Done." He bolted for the door. She sat in front of the keeper pile on the floor and started folding. When he'd been gone a few minutes, she began to worry he'd escaped. He wouldn't dare leave her with this mess, would he? A moment later, she heard him pounding back up the stairs. He entered the room with a handful of black trash bags in one hand, two candy bars in the other. "We have to keep our strength up."

"You're stealing candy from your own kids?" she said in mock horror.

"Don't worry." He dropped the bags and closed the bedroom door. "I'm pretty sure they don't like these."

She grabbed the candy and tore the brown paper. "Sophie does, but I won't tell if you don't."

Amanda set Mark to work putting the giveaway pile in a plastic bag while she neatly folded the clothes in the keeper pile and set them in another bag. They worked in companionable silence, Amanda lost in her thoughts as she folded each garment. Memories flitted through her mind with each piece.

She lifted a long-sleeved rugby shirt she'd never liked, preparing to fold it when she froze. Beneath it lay a gray sweatshirt emblazoned in rainbow colors with the words Canobie Lake Park . Amanda dropped the rugby shirt and gently lifted the sweatshirt. Burying her face in it, she allowed the memories of that night to overtake her.

Mark had surprised her with a trip to Canobie Lake Park. It was way out of their tiny budget, but he insisted it would be worth every penny to take her on her first Ferris wheel ride. Though the day had been sunny and warm, by nightfall the temperature had dropped, and when Amanda shivered, Mark offered to buy her a sweatshirt. In the gift shop they found a huge variety of hoodies and jackets, all overpriced except a clearance table piled with old merchandise. Extra larges and larges, but no smalls. He'd suggested they look at the more expensive items, but she insisted she wanted a gray one, large, with the words Canobie Lake Park written across the front in rainbow colors.

Sweatshirt drooping on her tiny frame, they walked among the crowds, slowly making their way to the Ferris wheel. When she looked up at the ride—it had to be a hundred feet tall—her stomach knotted in a tangled mass of fear.

"I can't."

Mark offered his warmest, kindest smile. "Of course you can."

He stood beside her and held her hand as they watched the wheel turn, stop to let people off and on, and turn again.

When the man running the ride made his way toward the gate, Mark slipped inside the rat-in-a-cage maze, pulling her behind him.

Her stomach spun faster than the Ferris wheel, which turned at what looked like top speed before slowing to a stop. Four teenagers climbed out, and Mark led her forward and climbed in, not taking his hand from hers. "Come on. You can do it."

She stumbled into the tiny, plastic car and fell into his arms. The car lurched, she gasped, and Mark kissed her.

The swaying of the car, the upward movement, the wind blowing her hair. She hardly noticed those things while Mark's lips moved with hers. How could she be afraid when he was so close? And then the ride stopped, and Mark leaned away .

"Open your eyes and look," he said, his voice gruff.

Reluctantly she obeyed, gasping with shock. They were stopped at the apex. She moved closer to Mark and grabbed his T-shirt in two frightened fists as she turned behind them and peeked over the side. A thousand lights twinkled over the park. Roller coasters whipped their riders here and there. Other rides spun and twisted and flipped. Tiny people scurried like ants in and out from beneath the trees. "Oh, it's beautiful!"

"Gorgeous," he said.

She looked at him to see he was staring not at the view, but at her.

Amanda fingered the sweatshirt. Mark had looked at her that night as if she were the most beautiful girl in the world. She'd given him the sweatshirt, since it was far too large for her, and though he'd never worn it, for some reason he'd tossed it into the pile of clothes he wanted to keep. The trouble he'd gone to that day, just so she could ride a Ferris wheel. He'd loved her once, loved her more than she ever deserved. A painful lump formed in her throat.

She couldn't do this, not now. She dropped the sweatshirt and looked up to find Mark watching her.

She swiped her cheeks with the sweatshirt and began to fold it.

"I love you as much today as I did then," he said.

A sob escaped her clenched throat, and she hid behind the sweatshirt.

She saw his feet, then his knees as he knelt in front of her. "More, in fact."

She shook her head.

He gently placed one of his hands over both of hers and pushed them, along with the sweatshirt, to her lap. He bent lower to meet her downcast eyes. She tried to move away, but he held her firmly. "Amanda, I still love you." He weaved his fingers in her hair at the base of her neck. "I will always love you."

Forgetting everything that had driven them apart, she rocked forward and kissed him.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. The piles of clothes was pushed aside and forgotten.